Remains likely Cyndi, 'Chevy'

SAN ANDREAS - Searchers recovered a second set of human remains Friday and, using dental records, identified the skull found a day earlier as that of Cyndi Vanderheiden.

Scott Smith

SAN ANDREAS - Searchers recovered a second set of human remains Friday and, using dental records, identified the skull found a day earlier as that of Cyndi Vanderheiden.

Both were found in spots identified by convicted serial killer Wesley Shermantine.

Paula Wheeler, the mother of 16-year-old Stockton girl Chevelle "Chevy" Wheeler, received a call from investigators telling her that along with a partial skull and bones, they also found on her a sweatshirt and lavender jacket.

The clothes matched what Chevy Wheeler wore the day she played hooky from Franklin High School with Shermantine, then 19. Paula Wheeler said she dropped her daughter off that day 27 years ago.

" 'Bye, mom, I love you," were the last words Wheeler heard from her daughter.

Shermantine, 45, prompted the search by sending letters to The Record and others from his cell on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

On Thursday, searchers located a skull and bones - not far from Friday's find - where Shermantine said he disposed of 25-year-old Clements woman Cyndi Vanderheiden. She was murdered in 1998.

Using dental records, officials said Friday that they believed the remains were those of Vanderheiden.

At a third location Friday, San Joaquin County sheriff's deputies brought in heavy equipment to excavate an abandoned well near Flood and Escalon-Bellota roads in a rural area east of Linden.

Shermantine identified that well as "Loren's Boneyard," named for his boyhood friend and former partner in crime, Loren Herzog. There could be 10 bodies deep in the old well, he has said. Digging at the site has yet to yield results.

In Calaveras County, the remains presumed to be Chevy Wheeler's were buried on a rocky hillside behind a castlelike home Shermantine's father built on Leonard Road, located a few twists and turns from San Andreas.

Officials have yet to officially identify Wheeler through DNA analysis. But the clothing description satisfies Paula Wheeler that her long-held dream of bringing home her daughter's remains are within reach.

"No, I wouldn't say sad," Wheeler said of her emotions in a phone interview from her home in Crossville, Tenn. "We've known she's been gone all this time. Now we can bring her home. It's not a sad day. It's a very happy day."

Deputy David Konecny of the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office said the crew at work on the old well near Linden will continue through the weekend, if that's what it takes.

They began the day using a backhoe. By midday, county Public Works had hauled in a massive excavator to begin scooping out a hole 50 to 75 feet deep. A farmhouse nearby is on private property surrounded by rolling grassland.

"It could take days," Konecny said of the digging. "It's a slow and tedious process."

Shermantine prompted the multiple searches from his death row cell by mailing maps and details in letters to The Record and, more recently, to Sacramento bounty hunter Leonard Padilla.

Shermantine and Herzog were arrested in 1999, ending what officials say was a killing spree spanning the 1980s and '90s. There may be 18 to 20 total victims, said county Deputy District Attorney Thomas Testa.

Shermantine admits abusing methamphetamine, which he said ruined his life.

But he maintains he did not kill anybody, only burying some victims for Herzog. A jury said otherwise and found Shermantine guilty of four murders. He was sent to San Quentin State Prison, where he remains today.

For his part, Herzog was found guilty of three of the murders and given a sentence of 78 years to life. That was overturned on appeal, and Herzog pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

He was paroled in 2010 but apparently committed suicide last month at age 46, learning that Shermantine had begun to reveal the burial places. Shermantine wanted Herzog back in prison and perhaps given a cell on death row.

Of "Loren's Boneyard," Shermantine wrote to Padilla in a Jan. 22 letter that the two friends one day were out coyote hunting. Herzog stopped their truck, pulled out a gas can and poured it down the well, he wrote.

"He used the five gallons, lit a fire and he was happy," Shermantine wrote. "He said it was something he had to get rid of."

Padilla said he agreed to pay Shermantine $33,000 if the information led to the remains. Padilla said he's learned over years in the hard-scrabble world of bounty hunting that cash is often a shortcut to breakthroughs.

Padilla is often ridiculed by law enforcement for his unorthodox tactics and love of the spotlight. He was kept far from the Linden dig Friday, along with reporters. He doubted they were digging in the correct place.

"I can tell you where the right well is - if you're interested," he shouted to a deputy stepping behind the crime scene boundary.

Back in Tennessee, Paula Wheeler said she and her husband, Raymond, are preparing a return trip to Stockton to collect Chevy Wheeler's remains. They plan to have them cremated.

They'll take them back to Tennessee and place them in an urn on their mantel, where they can talk to her. At first, Wheeler said she'll scold her daughter for cutting school that day.